"Look Away! Look Away! Look Away! Dixieland

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

One week. Oh that gets me weak, in the knees. It's on! Like the pioneers before us (but not the Donner Party, please!) we are gonna make the trek to the land of Dixie. Sweet Home.
Just like I did a few days ago with Washington State, I will now shine the light on Alabama. Here we go!

1. Alabama is a producer of all time great sports heroes. Henry Louis Aaron, Mobile 1934. Willie Howard Mays, Westfield 1931, Joe Louis, Lexington 1914.

2. Huntsville has been deemed the rocket capital of the world. It was workers from Alabama that built the first rocket that carried men to the moon!

3. On December 14, 1819, Alabama became the 22nd state.

4. 1902. Montgomery. The western hemisphere's first open heart surgery is performed. Dr. Luther Leonidas Hill. A stab wound!

5. Alabama means "Tribal Town" in Creek.

6. The state insect is the Monarch Butterfly.

7. Washington County is the oldest county in Alabama (Tee-hee Washington-get it?)

8. Saucy star Tallulah Bankhead was born in Huntsville, 1902.

9. The pecan is Alabama's official nut. (I could come up with some humdingers on this one!!)

10. In 1866, Montgomery began operation of the nations first electric street trolleys. (Take THAT San Francisco libs!!!!)


The lists for Alabama weren't nearly as long or as quirky as Washington's were. You see Alabama is a girl gone bad gone good kind of gal. She has a past. Out of the ashes of the Civil War rose the phoenix of the Civil Rights Movement. A people trampled down rose up and gave birth to "I have a dream". A trek that began with uneasy, unsteady steps, turned into the sure, measured steps of a march. With a cadence and fervor that carried them into the history books, and reformatted the heart of America. Alabama exists as a lesson. The past can teach us, but it does not have to define us.

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